


Empty Arms

by silentparody



Category: Neverland (TV)
Genre: Gen, Regret
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-30
Updated: 2015-09-30
Packaged: 2018-04-24 03:19:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4903534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silentparody/pseuds/silentparody
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>That night, Hook has time to think.  Too much time to think.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Empty Arms

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for the kink meme in 2011 for the prompt "All Jimmy has left of Peter is his Shadow."

The ship's bell had already rung the beginning of the middle watch, but the lamps in the captain's cabin remained lit, and James Hook sat at the table, a bottle at his left hand. The constant throbbing ache in his bandaged right hand - his right _wrist_ , he thought furiously, and took a drink - grated against his nerves, and the useless excuse for alcohol they had here did nothing to take the edge off, but the physical pain alone was not what kept him awake.

He'd had a grand dream, not so very long ago. He'd had an ambition and a vision burning so bright within him that everything else had seemed faint as a shadow, and yet the long days in the cave waiting and planning his escape had smothered his ambition into cold ash. What had he gotten for all his scheming? A ship full of villains and fools with no love for him. An empty wrist, with no sword-hand at its end. An empty bed, with no Bonny to shove him into it. An empty pocket without the weight of a familiar watch.

(Empty arms where his boy should be.)

Hook lifted the bottle for another drink, then tossed it to the deck. And an empty bottle, he had that, too. _Well done, Jimmy, and what will you throw away next for your dreams?_

He rested his elbows on the table and let his head sink into his hands, then swore as his right hand - _wrist_ , damn it - hit his forehead and sent agony singing down his arm. He cursed at length through clenched teeth, hunched over the table till the pain quieted down to its previous, more tolerable levels; he raised his head to look for another bottle, and saw the lamplight cast a shadow as familiar as his own next to him.

Hook was up in an instant, sword straight and steady in his left hand, pointed at - nothing. The cabin was empty.

A flicker of movement at the corner of his eye and he whirled around, slashed at the height of a growing boy's throat, and his sword cut through air. "Come out and face me, Peter!" he shouted; his eyes flickered across the cabin, searching for a glint of light off silvered hair or skin, but he found nothing but shifting shadows as the lamps swung gently back and forth with the ship.

James lowered the sword till the point touched the deck. "Peter, come out," he said, "I didn't mean to -"

(Of course he'd meant to slice that wretched brat's stomach open and splash his guts across the cabin, kill the little monster who would take his hand without giving him mercy -)

(No, he just needed to explain, he had to make Peter _understand_ -)

He saw Peter's shadow hovering next to his again; moving with great care, he placed the sword flat on the table, waited, and when the shadow didn't move he turned to face Peter.

Peter wasn't there.

James looked back down, but the shadow still hung on the deck, wavering in the light with no one to cast it. Somehow, after everything he had seen in Neverland, he couldn't bring himself to be surprised. "Is this all of you that has the courage to face me, then?" he said, his voice harsh from the drinking. "Did you find a way to come mock me without risking your own precious skin?" No, that wasn't what he had meant to say, damn it, but his tongue and temper seemed to have minds of their own of late.

Peter's shadow darted past him and he turned again to follow it, his own shadow stretching out before him. Peter's shadow hesitated next to it; then its hand reached to touch the shadow of James's left hand, and James felt a hint of pressure against his palm.

All the rage that had flared up in him died again, and he collapsed back into the chair. "It would be a shadow that came back to me," Jimmy said, and covered his face with his hand. What had he done but burn all of Peter's trust and loyalty as fuel to the fire of his ambition, betray Peter over and over, each time worse than the last? Lie out of false kindness, and then spit the truth in Peter's face like acid? Any good left in Peter would shine through in spite of Hook, not because of Jimmy, and all that he deserved, all that was left for him was a shadow of the boy he had raised.

He looked at the wavering shadow, and asked, "Would you still be my partner, then?"

Peter's shadow slipped closer to him and he put his arms around it, held it close, but it had no warmth or scent of a living boy, no weight in his arms, no substance; he felt only the lightest brush of hair against his cheek, the barest impression of a shape in his embrace, the faintest echo of the last time he had held Peter. Jimmy clung to it till the lamps flickered out and darkness fell and, at last, he slept.


End file.
